Midtown Lunch

If you live or work on the westside, and are on the hunt for great ramen, most people will point you to Santouka in the Mitsuwa Marketplace on Venice. And it’s hard to argue with that recommendation. It’s a porktastic bowl of ramen, with great flavor, solid noodles, and tons of sheen (aka greasy greasy fat). But what about for those days when you feel like complete crap (i.e. how I feel as I’m typing this.) Yes, while this might be hard for most of you to believe, the last thing I feel like dumping on a fever, stuffed up nose, and sore throat is a hot liquid made up of 50% pork fat- and that’s a conservative estimate for Santouka’s ramen

So… what’s a sick guy, craving a lighter bowl of ramen on the westside to do? Ramenya of course!

Most ramen aficionados will base their broth assessments on richness and depth of flavor (hence the popularity of places like Santouka and Daikokuya), but when your nose is stuffed up a lot of that nuance is going to be loss on you. What I wanted is comfort. So when my goto blog for all things ramen called Ramenya the “perfectly capable but slightly boring noodle shop that you know all too well because frankly, you default to it whenever your inner thrill seeker is on strike” I felt like this might be just what the doctor ordered. Granted the review was from 2006, but old standbys tend to be just that. Old standbys, right?

According to Rameniac, the shoyu (soy sauce) ramen is the thing to get at Ramenya so that’s what I went with, and for $7 it’s a pretty outstanding deal. Big bowl of soup, decent noodles, salty broth and a great thick slab of pork which fell apart like a great pot roast. A few dashes of the red chili pepper on the counter and my nose cleared right up (if only for a little while.)

The only downside? It’s cash only, so remember to bring some money. The last thing you want to be doing while sick is running in the pouring rain to the ATM across the street. (Yes, that was me soaked on Olympic yesterday.)

Is Ramenya better than the almighty Santouka? Not usually. But yesterday, for me, it was.

Ramenya, 11555 W Olympic Blvd, 310-575-9337